M. Elena Navarro
Houston, Texas 77017
(713) 649-5100
Harris County, Texas
Criminal defense
Family law
Personal injury
Tex. Bar No. 197264
HOUSTON TX
You will not be handed off.
This is a one-lawyer office off the Gulf Freeway. The person who answers your questions is the person who reads the file, walks into the Harris County courthouse and signs the filings. There is no intake floor between you and the attorney, because there is no floor.
Most people who call have never needed a lawyer before. They are not sure what they are allowed to ask, or whether asking costs money. It does not. A first conversation is a conversation.
I.The name on the filing is the person you called.
A solo practice is a plain arrangement. One attorney carries the file from the first phone call to the last setting. Nothing is passed to a case manager you have never met, and no one has to be brought up to speed on your matter twice.
There is a practical version of this that matters more than the principle. When you call back in three weeks with a question, you are not explaining your case again from the beginning to somebody new. When something changes on a Friday afternoon, the person who has to decide what to do about it already knows the file.
That also means the calendar is finite and the office says so out loud. If a matter is outside what this office handles, you will be told that in the first conversation rather than three weeks later.
II.Three kinds of trouble walk through this door.
Open one and read the plain version. None of this is advice about your situation, and none of it predicts what will happen in your case.
An arrest is a deadline, not a verdict. From the moment someone is booked, dates start running: a bond setting, a first court appearance, deadlines for the State to hand over what it has. Most of the damage people do to their own case happens in the hours before anyone has explained that.
What this office does first is simple and unglamorous. Find out what you are actually charged with, get the paperwork, find out what the State says it has, and find out what your conditions of release are so you do not violate one by accident.
You are allowed to say: I want a lawyer. Then stop answering questions. Asking for a lawyer is not an admission of anything.
Custody is not a feeling. It is a schedule, a set of rights and duties, and a number, all written down and signed by a judge. Divorce is the same: property, debt, children, and dates. The work is turning what a family already knows into language a court can order.
People arrive at this part of their life tired and often frightened of saying the wrong thing. The useful move is usually not to argue harder. It is to write down what actually happens week to week, because a schedule that matches real life is the one that holds up.
Bring the papers you were served with, even the ones you have not opened. The dates on them matter more than almost anything else.
The adjuster calls fast, and calls friendly, and there is a reason for both. A recorded statement taken in the first days, while you are still sore and still guessing at what happened, is very hard to walk back later.
The early work is evidence that disappears: the scene, the vehicles, the report, the names of people who saw it, and a clear record of the treatment you actually got. What a claim is worth is a separate question, and no honest lawyer answers it on the first call.
You do not have to give a recorded statement to another driver's insurer before you have talked to your own lawyer.
III.What to do in the first forty-eight hours
This is general information, not advice about your case. It applies whether the trouble is a charge, a served petition, or a wreck on the feeder road.
Write down the times.
Times, dates, badge numbers, the names of anyone who was there, and what was said. Do it while it is fresh. Memory blurs in a week and the file lasts for years.
Stop explaining.
The instinct to clear things up on the spot is a good instinct in ordinary life and a bad one here. Say that you want a lawyer, and then stop answering questions. That sentence is not an admission of anything.
Photograph everything before it changes.
Vehicles, the intersection, your injuries, the condition of a house, a text message thread, a bruise, a receipt. Things get repaired, deleted and cleaned up faster than you expect.
Do not sign or record anything yet.
Releases, statements, agreed orders, and settlement papers all look routine. Call before you sign one. Ten minutes on the phone costs nothing and is very hard to undo afterwards.
Keep one folder and one album.
Every piece of paper about the matter goes in a single physical folder. Every photo goes in one album on your phone. When a lawyer, a court or an insurer asks for something eighteen months from now, the person who kept one folder finds it in a minute and the person who did not spends a weekend on it.
I want a lawyer.
IV.Exhibits
A case is mostly paper and place. Drag the row sideways.
V.Words you will hear, in plain English
General definitions, written the way they get explained across a desk. They are not advice, and the exceptions are real, which is exactly why people hire someone.
The setting where the charge is read and a plea is entered. It is a date on a calendar, not a trial.
The rules attached to being out. Breaking one can put a person back in custody even when the case itself is going fine.
What the State has to hand over. In Texas criminal cases this runs through Article 39.14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
A court date moved to another court date. Most settings are short and many get reset. Showing up is still not optional.
The rules a family lives under while a divorce or custody case is pending. They often matter more day to day than the final decree.
The default schedule written into the Texas Family Code. Courts tend to start there and then adjust to what a family actually does.
A session with a neutral third person, required by many courts before a contested hearing gets heard.
The insurance company's employee. Usually pleasant on the phone, and not working for you.
The outside deadline to file suit. In Texas most personal injury claims run two years from the date of the injury. There are exceptions, and missing it usually ends the claim.
A form of community supervision where a Texas judge holds off on entering a finding of guilt while conditions are completed. Whether it is available, and whether it is the right thing to take, depends entirely on the case.
What Texas calls the bundle of rights and duties a parent has: who decides about school, medical care and where a child lives. It is a separate question from the visitation schedule.
The claim a health insurer or a hospital can make against part of a recovery for bills it already paid. It is one of the reasons the headline number and the take-home number are not the same.
The letter that puts a number in front of an insurer along with the records that support it.
VI.Straight answers to the four questions everybody asks
Does it cost anything to ask?
No. Calling and describing what happened costs nothing. What representation costs depends on the matter, and it gets said plainly, out loud, before anything is signed.
Can you tell me what my case is worth?
Not on a first call, and be careful with anyone who will. Before the records exist, a number is a guess dressed up as a promise.
I already talked to the police. Is it too late?
It is not too late to stop. What has been said is said, and the next thing you say is still yours to control. Bring what you remember and be honest about it.
What if this office does not handle my kind of case?
Then you will be told that on the first call rather than a month in. A referral to someone who does handle it is worth more than a file that sits.
VII.Where to find the office
Law Office of M. Elena Navarro
8866 Gulf Freeway, Suite 211
Houston, Texas 77017
Telephone (713) 649-5100
Email elena@navarrolawoffices.com
Bring a photo ID and every piece of paper anyone has handed you: the citation, the bond conditions, the petition you were served with, the crash report, the letter from an insurer. If you have none of it, come anyway. If you call and reach voicemail, leave your name, your number, and what county you are in.